Cambridge Rugby Club have made a promising start to life in National League One.

The side currently find themselves 10th in the league on 34 points, seven points off the relegation zone, while runaway leaders Hartpury College are on 79, having had their biggest slip up of the season last time out by not securing the bonus point.

There were plenty of changes at the club after they won promotion last season, with director of rugby Rowland Winter and players Brett Daynes, James Stokes and Corey Hircock all joining league rivals Coventry, while Ross Stewart came in as Winter’s replacement.

But despite the upheaval they have made a decent opening half to the campaign with six wins from their 16 games.

Four of their six wins this season have come at home, as have their last two losses, against Ampthill and Rosslyn Park, which has taken a little bit of the shine off their otherwise good record at Volac Park.

Director of rugby Stewart was not alone in being frustrated by the most recent set of results, but still believes that there is more to come from his squad this season as they pass the halfway mark.

He said: “We’ve still got a huge amount of work to do. This club, this team and this squad have got massive potential.

“We had some changes and the boys who came in did a sterling job but there’s still loads to do.

“We are where we are and it’s probably a fair reflection of what we can do.

“We’ll have a bit of time off over Christmas and the boys should enjoy that time off and we’ll regroup.

“We’ve got 15 games to play and every game we go out to win and we firmly believe we’ve got a squad here capable of winning every game.”

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While a relatively comfortable start in their first season at this level is probably something that everyone involved with Cambridge would have taken before a ball was kicked, the fact that they have dropped points from winnable games has been a cause for concern.

The season opener against Plymouth Albion, which they lost 23-18, and in particular the last two losses at home all feel like missed opportunities.

Stewart said: “I would be lying if I said I wasn’t disappointed with the last two games.

“It left a sour taste in the mouth after all the great work we did at Blaydon, then missing out last week and taking nothing (in the two games) when we could have won both.”

Throughout these games there was a sense that a lot of the pressure was self-inflicted, with the team conceding points from a mixture of high penalty counts, set pieces and individual errors.

Nonetheless, it is still a team that is relatively inexperienced at this level and the quality, or the application, of the squad cannot be called into question. A prime example of that is their 20 point comeback against Lougborough Students to win 35-34 in October.

Club captain Stefan Liebenberg said: “We have done well to stabilise ourselves, but we have been involved in a lot of games that we have not come away with the points when we could have.

“The last two weeks have been frustrating and matches like Plymouth away were as well but there were half a dozen games when we were still in it until the end but didn’t take anything.

“We work every week on our set-pieces and not giving away penalties, though. Giving away two in one match would still be too many.

“If you look at our penalty record before the past few weeks it has actually been pretty good.

“Half the squad, maybe more, though, haven’t played at this level so it’s about them getting used to it as well.

“As someone who has previously been in the league, the standard has improved and the sides we have played against have been bigger, stronger, fitter and much better drilled.

“The overall quality of players is higher too.”

Despite the wobble in the past few weeks, Stewart has said in the past that there have been matches where his side have laid down a marker, and he is confident that they should be pushing for promotion to the Championship in two years’ time.

The league, which was desperately close at the bottom until a few weeks ago, is starting to take shape. Blaydon’s loss to Darlington in their last game has left them and Macclesfield with an awful lot to do with both 12 and 13 points off safety, respectively.

Hull Ionians, who Cambridge beat 57-31, are four points adrift in the relegation zone and seven from Cambridge.

Hartpury College’s staggering domination of the league, with a lead of 22 points, means it is probably safe to assume they will finish in the single promotion spot too.

Liebenberg said: “We’re not looking below us or at the table, we’re just focusing on the best we can be.

“A relegation battle was never on our minds, I think you set yourself up for a fall if you think like that from the start.